Workday releases key updates in March and September each year.  Each release provides new functionality, enhances the user experience, and resolves identified issues in the software.  Workday releases are named for the calendar year in which they became effective + their release number. For instance, the upcoming spring release is known as "Workday Release 2020R1."

Owing to the scheduled release, Workday will be unavailable for use the weekend of the release from 11:00 pm on March 6 through 5:00 pm on March 8. Employees and administrators would do well to anticipate this downtime. Workday software updates require less time to install as Workday completes the software installation in the cloud. So end-users will be able to access it in no time.

Workday 2020 Release (2020R1) - HR Highlights

• Prevent Duplicate Records During Hiring and Contracting: This used to be a struggle for many organizations. Workday seems to have done a nice job in providing a task in hire to search and return possible duplicates in the Hire Business Process. It's definitely worth trying to see how it works for organizations.

• Task Consolidation for Review Offer: One of the challenges that come with high volume recruiting is when your inbox gets into the 3 (sometimes 4) digits. High-volume recruiting has been the target of earlier Workday® releases. With the 2020R1, approvals get the workbook treatment so high-volume managers and HR Partners can consolidate those offer steps into a workbook that reviews/approve up to 200 in a single workbook. 

• Regenerate Candidate Offer Document: Changing something as simple as a start date on an offer letter used to be problematic in the past too. The new Business Process allows you to correct that Offer and regenerate the doc for those changes which were used to end up processing an Undo Move From Hire. Ensure that you read the "What's new for this" because there are several things to consider before choosing this feature that will improve recruiter efficiency.

• Autocomplete Staffing Processes: Workday used to allow an autocomplete of the Propose Compensation Hire Step if it came from recruiting. However several other key sub-processes didn't get the same chances. Things have changed with 2020R1. You'll be able to configure the auto-completion of the following processes:
  • Add Additional Job
  • Assign Pay Group
  • Contract Contingent Worker
  • One Time-Payment
  • Stock Grant
  • Propose Compensation Hire

With other Workday versions, to autocompleting processes like the One-Time Payment and Stock Grant sub-processes was a bit problematic. Now, users can simply remove some condition rules in those sub-processes which skipped approvals when the business process was launched from Recruiting.

**Don't forget to check out the Financial key highlights in our other blog